Tag: time

One thing Warren Buffet can’t buy on Amazon on Black Friday – time

  • what warren buffet can't buy time
    Photo Credit: Jean Chow

Black Friday is no ordinary Friday. Big box retailers like Amazon are having the “biggest ever Black Friday” starting one week in advance, of course. Although it’s Prime Time on Amazon, Warren Buffet, the highly successful investor, and us ordinary folks would be hard pressed to buy time. So “I better be careful with it (time). There is no way I will be able to buy more time”, Buffett cautioned his friend, Bill Gates, in their 2018 interview.

Billionaires, Gates and Richard Branson, believe we need to “schedule time to just dream and think freely.” As a non-billionaire, I schedule my dream time efficiently – while I am dreaming. Clarity comes often just before I open my eyes. Allowing our minds to rest and wander gives us access to creativity. Time gives us creativity.

I met Frank O’Dea, co-founder of Second Cup, in 2013 and again in 2018. His struggle with alcohol and abuse is remarkable in “When All you Have is Hope”.  In “Do the Next Right Thing – Surviving Life’s Crises”, he outlined the need to:

  • First find peace.
  • Draw on a higher power.
  • Do the next right thing.

Take the time. Time gives us peace.

I once envied youth for all the time they have ahead of them. I urged them to not waste one single second.  Of course, they laughed at me. They have all the time in the world, don’t they? Apathy perhaps?

Comfortably past mid-life now, I no longer envy nor worry but watch with wonder the way youth race through life at Mach 9.6 speed. What will they do with all that time on their hands? More importantly, what will time give them? More opportunities? More wisdom, experience? More apathy? (surely not)

Will they meet new people #IRL (in real life)? Will they gain new perspectives by learning from others unlike them? Will they rise like Frank O’Dea when faced with unfathomable struggles? Time will tell.

I’ve met Sandra Shamas . When asked if she is a comedian, she says, “only if they laugh”. “My Boyfriend’s Back and There’s Going to be Laundry” was a big hit. We’re the same age. I borrowed a math “quiz” from her Show while making not too fine a point about the value of mentorship and experience. “How much time do we have left to live?” I had asked during a keynote for a bewildered group of aspiring entrepreneurs a few years ago.

We’ve got 30 years if our stars align properly. Sandra had asked: “What’s that in days?” 10,950 days, not a heck of lot. Try hours? 262,800 hours. Really? 15,768,000 minutes. 946,080,000 seconds, yep, that’s all we’ve got.

Looking back 30 years, I was the same age as they were that day. I asked them how many years separated us. 30 years. I then asked them to reflect on their lives so far and what they hoped to accomplish in the next 30 years. I asked them to think about how many more stories they would have to tell in another 30 years.

Then I shared with them a quote from Lubna Olayan now the first Chairwoman of a Saudi bank and one of the most powerful and influential women in the world according to TIME, Forbes, and Fortune. In “Fortune September 2015 , she said: “The more challenges you face in life, the more of life you experience – this lived experience gives one the “influence” to impact others’ lives.”

As mentors and mentees across the generations, we would make time to listen to understand one another instead of dismissing ourselves as Millennials and Boomers. We might learn something from one another that might help us save time. Anyone need more time?

Time gives us opportunities to share our experience and knowledge. Lifelong learning takes a long time, a life time. regardless of our age. Why not collaborate and co-create? Time is ticking so we best start now. #cometogether

We the (Aging) People

We’re not dead. Yet. My student and I were walking when suddenly a young person approached us from behind with a question, “What’s a boomer?”

He had eavesdropped on our discussion about technology and its impact on Boomers. He doesn’t know? Ouch!

“Ask your parents … or maybe your grandparents.” I winced. “Boomers” is another cohort like “Millennials” or “Gen Zers”. Got it?”

He nodded, “I had no idea.”

We’re not dead yet. Or are we? I started to wonder. From his perspective, we’ve already left and forgot to close the door on our way out. Not so fast. Here’s what the experts say:

On Perspective

Daniel H. Pink is the author of best-selling business books about motivation and sales: “Drive”, “To Sell is Human” and “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.  His TED Talk on motivation has more than 20 million views.

In his 2016 commencement address at Georgetown University, he opens with a 20-second social experiment on perspective-taking which I cite in our “Fearless Networking: Connecting Creatively & Confidently” workshop.

Pink cautions us at the end of his social experiment that as we grow in our career, we gain more power and we tend to lose our perspective-taking ability. We should argue like we’re right but listen like we’re wrong. And don’t believe we’re the smartest person in the room because we’ve just shown that we’re not.

Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy-the mental, the emotional, the psychological differences between people. And the key to valuing those differences is to realize all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are.” ~ Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“The world urgently needs more grace.” Ms. Claire M. C. Kennedy, Chair of the Governing Council of the University of Toronto as she addressed the convocation yesterday at University of St. Michael’s College.

On Empathy

Standing in the queue at the grocery store Friday night, a young woman in front of me turned and said she knew me. We met last year at ICA’s “Idea Summit” on inclusivity, diversity, and equity. We swapped stories about our fear of water and swimming. She has her Swim 1 and 2. I’m still at Swim 0. She offered invaluable insights, tips, and her perspective on how she overcame her fear. Inspired, I thanked her and what do you know, her name is “Grace”! “The world urgently needs more grace.”

I have a deep appreciation of art but I cannot draw, not even a crooked line, so I took an art sampler from the Art Gallery of Ontario. In one afternoon, our dedicated instructors took us through the painful steps of beginner sculpting, printmaking, drawing, and water colour painting.

An artist's perspective
Auguste Rodin – The Cathedral

Moving from station to station, we gathered our mini-art projects and I wondered if mine deserved fridge magnets but sadly, no. However, I managed to sharpen my perspective-taking ability especially during sculpting. My struggle to mold and shape the clay into an egg helped me appreciate all the labour that Auguste (Rodin) must have expended to achieve mastery.

On Kindness

George Sanders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University. His debut novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” won the 2017 Man Booker Prize. He is included in Time list of the one hundred most influential people in the world.

In “Congratulations … By the Way – Some thoughts on Kindness” based on his Class of 2013 convocation address at his university, Professor Saunders shares a poignant story about a new kid named “Ellen” in his 7th Grade and why to this day, he still remembers her.

George Saunders Congratulations By the Way Some Thoughts on Kindness
Some thoughts on Kindness for Graduates

He also asks:

  1. “Why aren’t we kinder?

Apparently we have three “built-in confusions”:

“We’re central to our universe.” Our story is the only story that matters.

“We’re separate from the universe.” – There’s “Us” and then the rest of them.

“We’re permanent.” – You’re going to die but I’m not me.

2. “How do we become kinder?”

Professor Saunders: “Kindness is hard. … Becoming kinder happens naturally with age. As we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish… We get our butts kicked and people come to the rescue and we’re not that separate and we don’t want to be. Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving.” Right, Boomers?

I’ll admit I am full of envy whenever I’m talking to someone half my age. They have so much more ahead of them, so many opportunities, and so many days left. I remind them how fortunate they are. Time is on their side. George Saunders (and I) want them to know that “your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving:  Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.”

Because the world needs more “Grace”.